


Another Layer

by orphan_account



Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén, Fallen Hero: Rebirth (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Gay Character, Fluff, Identity Reveal, M/M, No Sex, No Smut, Soft Steel, Suggestive Themes, Trans Character, i've spoken that tag into existence, probably going to be part of a multi-chapter fic released at a later date?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-25 00:01:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20714738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It starts with Gabriel asking to wear Chēn’s hoodie. Everything spirals from there.





	Another Layer

**Author's Note:**

> you have no idea how tempting it was to name this 'melt a heart of steel' or 'equivalent exchange'. 'fire can't melt these steel beams'. so many possibilities,,,,

“I’m taking care of you while you heal, the least you can do is pay me in sweater time.” Gabriel teases, tugging on the grey garment. Chēn is easily three sizes bigger than him, but Gabriel wore layers religiously, apparently to the point of stealing them from others.

Chēn is, admittedly, nervous. He’s not Ortega. He’s not an easy flirt, but here Gabriel is wanting to wear his clothes and stay at his house to help him while he recovers.

He clears his throat. “I think we can compromise.”

“Oh? That’s new.” Gabriel grins, eyes flickering between his face and the hoodie. “What’s the deal?”

“You can wear my hoodie,” Chēn starts, swallowing before he puts his hands on Gabriel’s hips and pulls him in close. “Just my hoodie.”

“I…” His eyes are wide and Chēn momentarily fears he’s said the wrong thing when he catches the blush creeping over his cheeks. “Is that, uh, something you would want?”

“I wouldn’t have suggested it, otherwise.” He can’t resist smiling down at him. Gabriel was one of the most competent fighters he met, but it was adorable to see him this flustered. “You wanted to wear it.”

“Want to, present tense.” Gabriel hesitates, slipping his hands under Chēn’s shirt. His hands are freezing and Chēn shivers as they slide up his torso. “Do you want me to strip in front of you?”

“Now you’re just teasing me.” He huffs, planting a kiss on his forehead. Its thrilling that he’s able to do that now. So much has changed between them. Before, they could barely tolerate the other in the same room. Now, they walk Spoon together every day.

The silence feels weighted as Gabriel’s eyes dart between his own. Chēn didn’t necessarily appreciate the idea of him skimming his thoughts, but he could begrudgingly accept why he did it. Gabriel was a shy, nervous man with secrets Chēn couldn’t begin to guess at.

Gabriel didn’t tell him everything, but Chēn could tell by the way he flinched. How Gabriel avoided eye contact, loathed being touched, and spoke softly. Something was wrong right now.

Chēn’s ready to take it back. Tell him it was just a joke, that it’s fine, that he can take the hoodie.

He’s already pulling off his first layer. A nondescript hoodie, nearly identical to the one he wore as Sidestep. Maybe he just likes Chēn’s clothes better.

“Oh,” Chēn exhales and presses up against him just to make it difficult. “How many layers do you have?”

“More.” Gabriel snorts, smirking up at Chēn. “You didn’t think I’d make it easy, did you?”

The words are light despite whatever’s holding him back. More and more, Chēn is reminded of how differently Gabriel responds to him than others.

He leans into his hold and bats his eyelashes at him. Gabriel may not enjoy eye contact, but he’s admitted more than once to how much he likes looking at Chēn’s eyes.

Chēn cups his face and pulls him into a kiss. He doesn’t flinch.

“I can’t do this with you holding me.” Gabriel’s laugh breaks the kiss, both of them smiling so much that their teeth clack together when they try to move.

“Go on, then. I’ll watch.” Chēn backs off, folding his arms across his chest as Gabriel pulls off another layer. It’s a sweater and he isn’t surprised to see another long sleeved shirt underneath. A formal looking button up, creased at the elbows and wrinkled at the bottom. “You’re ready for any event, huh?”

“Not this, obviously.” Gabriel takes his time, unbuttoning the shirt as he once did for Chēn. His fingers stumble occasionally and Chēn isn’t sure whether to be amused by his nerves or concerned.

“You don’t have to, you know.”

“I want to,” Gabriel replies, but pauses in his work. “I really, really want to.”

“By all means.” Chēn’s mind briefly betrays him, trying to come up with something flirtatious to say and only thinking of what Ortega would comment. “I’m certainly not complaining.”

“You better not be.” Gabriel gives a shaky smile as he resumes the process and eventually pulls the shirt off. He takes the time to fold it neatly on the floor and Chēn gets the sinking suspicion he’s stalling or just preparing to put them back on again. “I don’t do this for anybody, you know.”

“Isn’t the phrase supposed to be ‘just’ anybody?” He looks Gabriel up and down, appreciating how much of Gabriel’s true figure is revealed. He’s smaller without the layers, bordering underweight, and even more lanky than Chēn originally thought.

“I said what I said,” Gabriel bites out. The vitriol that’s been absent in their recent conversations comes back full force as he stands in his last layer. A plain long sleeved shirt.

It takes a moment for Chēn’s mind to catch up.

Open mouth, insert foot.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.” That, at the very least, deserves an apology. There’s been a lot of those. Gabriel and him had a tendency to walk into topics the other was sensitive to. “It’s nice that you’re comfortable enough to do this with me.”

“Yeah, well, it’s only for your hoodie.” Gabriel sighs exaggeratedly, but he looks past Chēn, to the door. To the bathroom.

To the window.

It’s a fight not to remember the Heartbreak incident, but from the way Gabriel jerks his head back to look at Chēn, he knows he heard that thought.

“Isn’t this supposed to be fun?” Gabriel bemoans, staring up at the ceiling and throwing his arms up in an over dramatic gesture. “Why do we always do this?”

“We just have a lot of history.” Chēn scoffs even as the words leave his lips. That’s an understatement.

“Get over here and kiss me, coward.” Gabriel draws himself up to his full height, still a few inches shorter than Chēn, looking like an angry kitten trying to be a lion.

“Of course,” Chēn obliges, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips. “Do you want help? It’s only fair I return the favor.” It wasn’t as if his texture mapping could mess up an unadorned cloth like this. It’s only buttons that are his enemy.

Gabriel kisses him again, licking open his mouth and sucking on his tongue with fervor. Chēn can only do his best to respond, gripping his hair in one hand and cupping his ass with the other. Gabriel’s own fingers find their way under his shirt to trace feather light patterns over his abs and scrape his nails over his hips.

They break apart, Gabriel nodding furiously and guiding Chēn’s hands to the hem of his shirt.

It feels too much like a last kiss. So, Chēn takes a moment to kiss his cheek, the corner of his mouth, his jaw and down his throat to mark him with dark bruises over his collarbone. He drags the shirt up as he does so, Gabriel distracted enough that he doesn’t notice until Chēn has to pull back to lift it over his head.

For a moment, Chēn is confused. There’s another article of clothing underneath all those layers. It takes a moment for it to register as a binder, his ribs straining under the fabric.

“How long have you been wearing that?” Chēn frowns. He better not have been thinking of sleeping in it. He could be reckless, uncaring for his own safety. He must have been wearing it since this morning, but he was waiting for him to wake up even before that. It was, what, six now? So, from at least ten in the morning until now.

“According to you? Too long.” Gabriel forces a laugh, trying to hug himself to cover his body.

“Right, take it off.” Normally, he’d try to respect Gabriel’s privacy, but eight hours in a binder was pushing it. Especially a full length one like his. Did it bind his stomach, too?

“You, uh, processed that all remarkably quickly.” He hikes his binder up, folding it halfway before he pulls it off over his head. His ribs are far too defined, his stomach dipping in and his hip bones sticking out. Definitely underweight.

Finally, Chēn’s eyes catch on the vivid orange tattoos.

“See, now you get it.” Gabriel’s voice turns sour, rubbing up and down his arms where the marks must have been out the whole time Chēn focused on whether he could breathe or was hurting from wearing his binder.

“Oh.” The word breaks in his throat, trying to catch up to the implications. That would explain the training, why he wouldn’t complete background checks, and why he wore four layers of shirts in the Los Diablos heat. “Oh.”

“Don’t you have anything else to say?” Gabriel barks, going on the defensive. He spreads his feet shoulder length apart, still wearing socks, looking from his innermost shirt, and then out of the bedroom to where his shoes wait by the front door.

“You should eat more,” Chēn blurts, cheeks flushing at the thought of Gabriel’s shelves in the Ranger’s fridge. Could he get him to join now? Surpass the background checks as Marshal and cover up his identity to hide him from the government?

“I… Okay.” Gabriel blinks, losing his footing and abruptly righting himself before he trips standing still. “Okay?”

“I can understand why you were so hesitant to do that.” He stops before it can sound too much like a formal ‘thank you’ for taking his shirt off. It’s very hard to avoid the word thank you when it’s all he wants to say. Thank you for trusting me, for showing me. “I’m... glad that we’re, uh... close enough for you to do that.”

The entire sentence is stilted and filled with out of place pauses and Chēn has never felt this off balance in his life. Losing his limbs, leading the Rangers, fighting supervillains he can all handle. Comforting his boyfriend is somehow impossible.

Gabriel takes a deep breath and winces, placing a hand over his ribs. He’s talking before Chēn can say anything about it, leaving him with one hand reaching out to steady him. “You did tell me to be careful once.”

That does sound like him, admittedly, but he can’t recall the event Gabriel so clearly remembers. “When was that?”

“I believe it was after we saved a civilian from a fridge.”

Yeah, he knows exactly when that was.

“I didn’t hear that.” Chēn groans, covering his face with one hand. “I temporarily went deaf. Plausible deniability.”

“Seriously?” Gabriel opens and closes his mouth a few times, spluttering his next words with a passion. “That’s all?”

“On this topic that I can neither confirm nor deny hearing anything about, yes, I think that’s the extent of my feelings.”

They stare at each other, neither knowing quite what to do in the wake of such revelations.

“Do you still want my clothes off--”

“Yes, please.”

Gabriel didn’t waste any time unbuckling his belt and sliding his jeans off.

“Leggings?” It shouldn’t be so surprising considering how his top layers went, but somehow Chēn expected him to only be wearing jeans.

“Wait for it.” Gabriel wiggles out of his leggings, balancing dangerously on one foot to pull them off, only to reveal tights underneath.

“You’re impossible.” Chēn huffs a laugh through his nose. He looks silly like that, hopping around and peeling off his tights as if this was just a thing normal people did. Chēn likes how he looks like that. Carefree, not looking over his shoulder or waiting for an attack. Somewhere along the way, Chēn relaxed, too. It certainly helps once ‘government spy’ is completely eliminated from reasons why Gabriel is here.

“You love me.” Gabriel grins, finally divested of his clothes and standing in only his boxers and socks. “I know, I read your mind.”

“I was thinking of how stupid you look like that.” He protests, trying to ignore how right those words sound. He wants to be like this more. To walk Spoon and embarrass themselves and each other daily instead of on rare occasions.

He knows that Gabriel is right.

“Very fondly, might I add.” He smiles triumphantly, his eyes squinting up with the force of it.

“You know, I can’t read your mind.”

Gabriel’s smile evaporates, but not for the reason Chēn would think to fear. No, he just looks confused, his eyebrows pushed together and his nose scrunched up. He’s pouting, too, like his own lack of knowledge is a personal attack.

It’s gone at once, replaced by wide eyes and a Bambi-like expression.

“Shit, you know I love you, too. Now give me your hoodie, you’re holding out on me.”

“That was the deal, wasn’t it?” Chēn sighs, unable to hide the relief in his tone as he pulls his own outer layer off.

“Shirt, too.” Gabriel demands, pulling on his hoodie with ease. The sleeves trail past his fingers and it’s practically a dress with the way it hangs down to the middle of his thighs.

“I don’t remember agreeing to that.” He raises an eyebrow, but takes it off.

“You didn’t, I just wanted to see you.” Gabriel grins mischievously, trailing his cold fingers over his shoulders. “You’re already very handsome, but I think you’d look better with less clothes on.”

“Gabe.” Chēn tries to sound scolding, but it comes out too soft to pass as exasperated.

“You’re overdressed.” Gabriel insists, pushing his hands past the waistband of his pants just as Spoon meanders into the room. He pauses, takes his hands back, then leaves the room entirely. Chēn’s left standing with Spoon’s judging eyes. “He feels guilty, but proud over something.” He explains, poking his head back into the room.

Chēn only needs to take two steps into the living room to understand why.

There’s a trail of trash from the kitchen to the couch and there’s no doubt that Spoon ate the rotten leftovers he threw away yesterday.

“He’s going to wake me up, puke on me, and wag his tail like he’s done nothing wrong.”

“He is a really good dog, to be fair.”

“You can clean it, then.”

“You’re lucky you’re injured.” Gabriel glares at him, but rolls up his sleeve and starts collecting trash. “Go, cuddle Spoon, leave me to my suffering.”

“I’m good here,” Chēn calls out, leaning against the wall to watch his hoodie ride up as Gabriel bends over.

“I can hear you thinking about my ass.”

“Would you rather I leave you out here, alone with a week’s worth of garbage?” Chēn shoots back. Their arguments had become this strange, sweet banter, that reminded him of how far they had come. Past fighting and suspicion, now trust and love.

“If I wanted that, I would have just stayed with you.” Nevermind, this was war.

Gabriel doesn’t stop him when Chēn marches over and picks him up. “Just for that, you can sleep next to the barfy dog.”

“Hey! I’m not done yet!” He wiggles in his grip, pointing to the half full trash can.

It reminds him of the unwashed dishes back at base. Not the strict, clean environment he wants, but awfully homey.

“Leave it. We can get it tomorrow.” Chēn decides, ignoring the small itch to pick it up now and be done with it. He has more important things to do, like cuddle his boyfriend and make sure Spoon isn’t sick.


End file.
